1. Field of the Invention
Methods and apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to a method and apparatus for transmitting data, and more particularly, to methods and apparatus for transmitting data, which can improve the download speed in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communication refers to the sharing of files between individuals connected via the Internet, and all participants of the communication become both a provider and a user at the same time.
There are two types of peer-to-peer communications. One type connects individuals with the help of a server, and the other type connects individuals by sharing personal information such as an IP address in advance. In the first type, after the connection and retrieval step, individuals directly share and exchange information as in the second type.
FIG. 1 illustrates the configuration of a system for downloading multimedia content based on a related art P2P method.
As illustrated, the P2P-providing system includes a web server 100, a P2P server 200, and multiple P2P clients 250.
The web server 100 helps P2P clients 250 download content. For this, the P2P server 200 can manage P2P clients 250 sharing certain files.
The P2P client 250 can download content from other P2P clients 250 using information provided by the P2P server 200. For this, the P2P client 250 connects to the web server 100, and then retrieves content to be downloaded. Then, the P2P client 250 obtains the URL address of the P2P server 200 from the metadata of the retrieved content, and connects to the P2P server 200. Next, the P2P server 200 provides to the P2P client the list of other P2P clients (hereinafter, called a “peer list”) sharing content to be downloaded. Then, the P2P client 250 can connect to the P2P clients 250 included in the peer list, and download desired content.
However, the related art P2P server 200 does not consider the network state or routing information between P2P clients 250, and generates a peer list by arbitrarily extracting P2P clients 250. Hence, in the case where the network environment between P2P clients 250 is poor, or their distance is far, the download speed is lowered, which is a problem.